The Future of Money

How to Enhance Best Buy’s Consumer Experience

What was once almost a monthly routine, trips to Best Buy have become less necessary and therefore less frequent for many. A recent trip, after an over six month hiatus, revealed some change and some same old problems with the in-store experience. Here are three ways Best Buy could consider improving its in-store shopping experience.

Free the Wearables.

When first walking in to some of the store layouts the first thing you are greeted by is the new, in-store Wearables section that holds a variety of health tracking devices. This is likely a relatively new addition for Best Buy, where all of the wearables are kept locked up in a box and difficult to test out. Best Buy should enable customers to do things they can’t do when they shop online. Have an employee nearby and a few test versions available for customers to try out the wearables. In addition, many of these wearables are paired with incredbily powerful mobile applications. A wearable kept in the box will have a much more difficult time selling than a wearable that can be tested and paired with its counterpart mobile application.

Enable Store Employees.

Make an immediate impact by positioning employees as tech-savvy resources by giving them their own mobile device to complete transactions instantly, answer questions and up-sell additional services. Every single employee doesn’t need to be armed with a device up front, but consider a phased, strategic roll-out that can increase their employee and customer satisfaction.

Replace Appliances with Something Else.

There is likely a strong financial reason for placing all those refrigerators and washing machines in every store. It has been said one of the reasons is to help make sure the store appears filled with inventory and these bigger items can help fill the store’s floor more easily. Best Buy should consider using that space to highlight what’s coming out, but perhaps not available yet, so customers can take a peek into the future. Pair that experience with a mobile app that highlights upcoming new products and the experience can be carried outside of the store as well.